Enterprise Communications Featured Article

Business to business (B2B) suppliers must meet the growing variety of enterprise communications its customers demand. And now it seems online services are particularly taking a hit for them. Acquity Group’s “2014 State of B2B Procurement Study: Uncovering the Shifting Landscape in B2B Commerce” study sheds some light on the purchasing habits and trends of corporate business procurement professionals—namely how they are interacting with the Web. The report is based on a survey of 500 procurement officers with annual purchasing budgets that exceed $100,000.

One of the key findings in the study is that more buyers – 68 percent of respondents as opposed to 57 percent last year – are making purchases online than ever before. Furthermore 18 percent spent over 90 percent of their budget online, double the number reported last year.

These statistics are indicative of how customer expectations are shifting to online sales, which is not very good for B2B suppliers as they claim only slightly less than half of all online sales. Meanwhile, third-party vendors such as Amazon are rising in popularity with nearly a fifth of respondents reporting that they use these services regularly.

One of the main reasons for this is that many suppliers’ websites are simply not up to snuff for today’s standards. This is demonstrated by the fact that a whopping 83 percent of respondents conduct product research on supplier websites while only 37 percent believe they are the most useful for that purpose, so there is clearly a large disparity between expectations and satisfaction.

The checkout process is another major issue, with 69 percent of respondents abandoning their shopping cart on a supplier’s website sometime in the past year. The abandonments were caused by a few different reasons, most commonly: the buyer found a lower priced product from another vendor, the website did not load properly, the checkout process was too confusing or the checkout process took too long. Therefore almost all of the problems reported by buyers involved customer experience problems, which must be addressed directly and immediately if suppliers hope to keep their customers.

“Sixty-seven percent of procurement officers said the amount of their budget spent online would increase with value-add features such as warranty tracking, notifications, invoice printing capabilities and the ability to consolidate and record spending,” the report stated. “Additionally, 61 percent of buyers would increase their online budget spend if it were easier and more convenient to browse and purchase items from suppliers’ websites. but are turning away from suppliers as they struggle to keep up with rising expectations for an ever-expanding digital realm.”

Mobile experiences are often overlooked by suppliers, but this study demonstrates that it is yet another important aspect of the customer experience. Although mobile devices in this context are mostly being used for research and not purchasing, both of those numbers are rising – especially among younger generations. Third-party vendors that offer seamless mobile options again have the advantage.

As buyers’ habits and expectations shift alongside the development of the digital realm, it is absolutely essential for any B2B supplier that wants to maintain success to expand yet streamline their online presence. The problems are only going to get worse for companies that resist the overwhelming trend, falling behind as competitors with innovative approaches and robust third-party offerings do battle in the digital realm.